Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Driving South through Florida? Heading to Miami
or onward to the Keys? Here’s a No Crowds Option to
consider…in the middle of frickin nowhere!

Florida is rarely thought
of when considering a No Crowds destination,
but there are alternatives to the crowded Atlantic and Gulf shorelines. If you
drive two hours directly south from Orlando, down the center of the Florida
peninsula, you’ll see some lovely
farmland, and eventually find yourself in Highland County, Florida’s little known lake district. At only about 100
feet above sea level, the highlands of Florida aren’t too lofty by global standards, but the
residents like to say that if we don't do something about global warming, they
will,soon be the only ones above water. The main attraction, though, is the
plethora of natural lakes that cover this area. They range from the deep and
sandy lakes that attract the water skiers and swimmers (they haul out the
gators when they get to be large enough to bother anything larger than a medium
sized bass), to the shallow, mud bottomed lakes that yield some of the best
bass fishing in the United States (or so our local fishing guide tells us, and
he has some impressive pictures to back his claim).

Be sure to stop in
Sebring, a little town of 10,000, which is rather unusual. For one thing, it has an active railway
station, where trains stop 4 times a day as they make their way between New
York and Miami. For those of you
who know how common actual functioning railway stations are in the US, even in
big cities ( meaning not very), this is quite unique. Especially since Sebring is, to coin a phrase, in the middle
of frickin' nowhere.

The second weird thing
about Sebring is, it has its own Grand Prix race. In the middle of frickin' nowhere. So, just like Monte Carlo, race week and the weeks leading
up to it are a beehive of activity. All the Major Grand Prix teams roll into
town, and for a short period of time, Sebring is the center of the racing
world. For those interested, the next 12 hour race is scheduled for Saturday,
March 16, 2013. Let me assure you,
however: there are absolutely no
other similarities between Sebring and Monte Carlo. None.

The third strange thing
about Sebring - strange in a wonderful way - is the Sebring Diner. It's a real life, 25 page menu, open 24
x 7 x 365, American Diner. In the
middle of frickin' nowhere. It's
out on the highway, just a few minutes from the center of town (which is easy
to miss). But it is easy to see
from a half mile away because it's a stainless steel art deco masterpiece, and
every inch of that steel has been shined until it glows. Inside, it's stainless and neon all the
way down. This IS American
Graffiti. Classic clocks from
Budweiser and others adorn the walls, and the chairs are the real
thing--stainless and naugahyde.
Fine Corinthian leather would not be welcome here. Of course there are booths where you
can drink your milk shake and talk about who was kissing who at the hop, but
sadly, the juke boxes on the tables seem to be missing. Even for a techie like me, the free
WiFi just doesn't make up for this.

I don't know what this
place is like at 3 in the morning, but I hope I'll get to find out somewhere
along the way. My guess is that
the enormous parking lot in the back fills up with the big rigs making their
way south from Orlando, their drivers looking to take a break with, as it turns
out, some truly first class comfort food. No surprise the diner’s refreshingly simple slogan is Save Money, Eat Better, Leave Satisfied.

Before you get a chance
to choose from the 8 kinds of pie, with or without ice cream, you will find a
surprisingly sophisticated menu, populated with fresh fish and shrimp from the
Gulf, crabcakes with remoulade, and some of the best prime rib we’ve ever tasted. A little known fact is that Florida is now the leading
cattle raising State in the U.S. bypassing Texas since the drought of the past
few years has caused Texas herds to dwindle.

We started with an order
of Fried Green Tomatoes ($3.99) the crispy crab cakes with choice of cocktail
or tartar sauce (4.99). The
tempura coating on the fried tomatoes was light and lacey, making us consider
another order. The mini crab cakes
were crispy and delicious, but couldn’t outshine the tomatoes.
We followed this up by eyeing the prime rib, (king cut, 18 0z for 15.99,
Queen size something less for $13.99), and decided that we still had a long
drive ahead so went light and
ordered the prime rib sandwich for $7.99, which included fries and cole
slaw. When the 9 oz serving of
rare prime rib arrived, we congratulated ourselves on our self-restraint. It was perfectly cooked, and the coated
fries were irresistible. As it
turned out, so was the apple pie with ice cream, though it wasn’t easy to decide between the many pies on
offer.

So if you're visiting the
States, especially if you're visiting Orlando (which recently passed New York
City in annual tourist visits, go figure), you have an unusual opportunity,
especially if you decide to sample the delights of the Keys, South Beach or Little
Havana in Miami on the same trip.
Don't, I beg you, drive down the over-commercialized shore route. Instead, go directly south through the
colorful spine of the state, only returning to the shore in Palm Beach for the
final trek to Miami and beyond. If
you start out at a relaxed 10 am, you'll reach the Sebring Diner just in time
for a glorious lunch, and you'll still make Miami before the sun goes down. And
you will have spent a brief, shining moment in the middle of frickin' nowhere.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Gary and Lorraine, best know for their coverage of the world's authentically exotic and unknown places have even figured out how to have a No Crowds experience in one of America's top tourist destinations. And yes, they saved money, ate better and left satisfied.

Saturday, June 09, 2012

In the Financial Times today, I read something that got me
really excited. It was a full page article about Political Tours, a company run by a
former Balkans correspondent for the New York Times who runs tours to former
and current conflict zones such as North Korea, Bosnia and Libya. What also got my attention was the fact that the Bosnian tour described in the article was led by Kate Adie. For those of you
unfamiliar with her career, she was the BBC’s premier correspondent in conflict
zones such as Rwanda and Saravejo. British soldiers used to say that they knew
they were in big trouble when she arrived on the scene. In short, she is about as
serious and knowledgeable as it gets.

In the FT article War
Stories, the author Catherine Nixey makes the point that No Crowds has
been making for years. She writes, “Travel may broaden the mind, but so
homogenized is the international tourist experience, so perfectly do the
high-end hotels and galleries replicate one another, that often all I learn is
that I can be as bored in a museum in Istanbul as I can in London.” She goes on
to ask the question: Political Tours is offering a different kind of travel
experience, but is war tourism the right way to go?

And then she answers the question by describing the group’s visit
to the war crimes section of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina where one of
the judges insists that this kind of travel is valuable and makes a difference.
“If it’s not on the front page of the newspaper, people don’t see it”, he says.
“People should know.”

When I took a course
on Peacekeeping Operations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in
2009, I was amazed by how much I didn’t know about Bosnia and Sierra Leone and
the Congo and Kosovo and East Timor and Afghanistan. How so much could go on for so long with my only having a vague awareness, So I’m excited to know
that there is a serious travel company doing these kinds of tours to parts of
the world we should know more about. Conflict tourism may not be everyone’s cup
of tea, but what Political Tours is offering sure impressed me.

About Me

I am interested in stories - all kinds - stories about travel, family, food, friends, dysfunctional relatives, not that I have any.
Mostly, I like discussing travel experiences that excite and inspire.